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A look at Smestow Academy, Wolverhampton who are now in the top 10 of secondary schools.
Express & Star
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16/01/2025
A look at Smestow Academy, Wolverhampton who are now in the top 10 of secondary schools.
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00:00
Hello everyone, I'm Ian Chamberlain, Headteacher at Semesto Academy. I'm really proud to have
00:12
been Headteacher here for the last two years. The school has been on an interesting journey.
00:17
We took over the school when it was Semesto School in January 2023 and reopened it as
00:23
Semesto Academy under the Matrix Academy Trust.
00:26
The Matrix has come in and they've put those systems, just simple systems, made them consistent,
00:34
made sure that all staff are on board and that the staff that have been here a long
00:39
time are against that kind of structure and that has just had the biggest impact for me.
00:47
The behaviour has changed quite a lot. People are less destructive in lessons so a lot of
00:52
people are learning more. The teachers are really helpful. We've got, I think they're
00:57
called LSAs, they help people who need more help in lessons.
01:03
So the old school closed down so we're still awaiting our new Ofsted inspection but at
01:08
the same time we're really, really proud of the achievements over the last two years where
01:12
we've seen our attendance increase by over 6% to now be above national. We've seen our
01:18
behaviour improve immensely and we've also, as a result of that, had some phenomenal outcomes
01:25
last summer with our exam results where we saw our pupil progress scores go from, to
01:31
become one of the most improved schools in the country.
01:33
The atmosphere in the classroom is so much more positive that good staff can then actually
01:39
deliver and teach and then of course the students respond to the content. They get that kind
01:45
of success and everything just goes straight up.
01:49
What helps as well is that Mr Chamberlain's here. We don't have a constant change of head
01:54
teachers because normally there'd be one head teacher and then it would change the next
01:58
week and obviously Mr Chamberlain's helped improve the school a lot by staying.
02:03
If you could pin this down in terms of how this has come about, it's just been a relentless
02:08
focus of hard work and parents and children and staff all working together. We've really
02:16
focused on asbestos values, that's a real key thing to everything we do. We've had a
02:21
real focus on behaviour and our high expectations with seven simple expectations. We look from
02:25
children to actually teaching the behaviours they need.
02:28
It's a great place to work, you rock up, you know you're going to have great classes, the
02:32
kids are going to be receptive and engaged and that makes it a very nice place to work.
02:37
We've also focused on looking at a real excellent personal development programme for our children
02:42
where we offer some real effective pupil support services around that as well such as our pupil
02:48
counsellor, our behaviour and pastoral mentors. And then lastly a real focus on reviewing
02:53
our curriculum and making sure it's the right one for our context and our children where
02:58
we've really focused on the asbestos teaching principles of how we impart that to be as
03:04
high quality as possible for our children.
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